


Invisible Blue

by Inkribbon796



Series: Masks and Maladies [83]
Category: CrankGameplays - Fandom, Markiplier fandom - Fandom, Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Heroes are a bit overprotective, M/M, Secret Identity, Spying, but they have a good reason, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25327372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkribbon796/pseuds/Inkribbon796
Summary: Ethan finds something a bit bigger while he’s spying on Damien. Much bigger than he planned on finding.
Relationships: Celine | The Seer/Wilford Warfstache | William J. Barnum | The Colonel, darkstache
Series: Masks and Maladies [83]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538131
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	Invisible Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a long story, I didn’t plan for this to be so long but I don’t know how to divide it up.  
> Also two different anon’s gave little fun ideas I’d already started working on but put into this one was to check on what Ethan was doing, and the other was for someone to over Damien incriminating himself as Dark on the phone.

Ethan was honestly getting a little fatigued. Normally day to day, it was alright, he exchanged with Chase to keep an eye on Damien so that Ethan could get a break. He did simple patrol routes for the simple reason that Ethan had to make sure he was seen in costume so no one would think he was spying on the Mayor.

Marvin and Chase didn’t report that Damien was acting different or suspicious.

Ethan was really ready to stop watching Damien today because the mayor worked, took a lunch break, and worked way too much, leaving often with his work with him when he went home.

If he was guilty of anything it was being a workaholic with barely a social life.

Today, Ethan considered leaving early, just because it was a slow day and he was already having a bad day. So while Damien was out to lunch, Ethan rushed out to grab a sandwich and was sitting in his chair in the corner just eating it and occasionally glancing at his phone. He had his brain halfway into whatever reddit post he was reading, and half concentrating on not choking to death on the burger in his mouth when he heard the doorknob being angrily turned as Damien stormed in.

Ethan’s reflexes were the only thing stopping him from being instantly found out, as he threw his own power over him and his stuff.

Damien was _angry_ , he was clearly pissed and screaming into his phone, “What is wrong with you?”

Ethan was carefully taking his burger out of mouth and trying to keep his movements slow and eventually as still as possible so he could save the energy to keep the invisibility up as long as possible.

“Well, why did you call me now, are you somehow dying? You know I’m at work!” Damien shouted into the phone.

Whatever response he got, he clearly didn’t like it, because he still looked pissed and Ethan didn’t think he had ever seen Damien even close to this level of anger.

Damien glared at his phone, and Ethan could hear what he thought was a phone ringing somewhere in the distance. But Damien pulled the phone away from his ear to take a breath. “You have the five seconds it takes for me to walk up and close my door, to get Illy.”

The Mayor took an audibly deep breath, “If I see you in my office, I will put an axe through your chest and carve your heart out, am I understood?”

He didn’t even wait for the answer, almost dropping his black phone on the desk and stomping over to the door, muttering under his breath. Ethan only caught part of as Damien stomped past, “Dammit, William, I can’t leave you alone for five minutes.”

Damien paused at the door, looking a bit pained, he took a deep breath and ran his hands over his face, taking his time to close the door and walk back to his desk. After settling back into his seat, he picked up the phone, “Yes.”

Relief seemed to flood over his body, “Finally, how bad is it?

As Damien was talking as Ethan slowly started to clean up, trying to be as slow as possible to avoid making noise.

“How much damage are we talking? His usual amount?” Damien asked as Ethan was finishing up his burger and pocketing the trash from it.

“I’m supposed to going to a benefit gala tonight in my tux, I can drop by briefly and calm him down, but I need you to take care of Bim and make sure he doesn’t break anything either.”

At Bim’s name, the name of the lead suspect in a series of suspicious disappearances of co-eds and transients, just stunned and terrified Ethan. The invisible hero had been trying to quietly fold up the wrapper his burger had come with, and after years of working quietly to where Jackie had to concentrate to pick him up he was more than confident that he was quiet. But heard that name made his hand reflexively clench and a loud and clear crinkling sound quietly punctuated Damien’s sentence.

Damien froze, eyes darting around, he looked in the corner Ethan was in several times, and one of those times he seemed to be staring directly into Ethan’s eyes two seconds too long to be comfortable.

Finally Damien said, “I’ll have to call you back, there’s something in my office.”

Damien hung up the instant he finished the last word and looked around the room, standing up. He didn’t call out and Ethan felt unnerved and wondered if he should just come out of hiding and try and pass his nervous shock off.

After about a minute Damien straightened up his desk a bit, and then left the room. Ethan was quick to try and follow him to the parking lot but only got to the parking lot before in record time he lost Damien, rounding the corner and someone else almost slammed into Ethan and he had to duck out of the way and he heard the door open and close and Ethan couldn’t see him after that.

Ethan made a quick call to Logan but he didn’t pick up so he had to step out and call Jackie who promised to get someone to the gala. They made sure to have a set of ear pieces they could use to communicate with each other.

Then he quickly finished cleaning up and just didn’t come back, not wanting to tip Damien off again.

Ethan and Roman arrived at the museum where they were hosting the gala in costume, early to help with the security detail.

“Be still my heart, what wonders of Apollo and the Muses above!” Roman gasped at one of the paintings.

The museum director walked out of his office, smiling but looking a bit nervous, “Always so great to have our city’s finest here for the gala. I take it you both are patrons of the arts?”

“Of course, Prince Creativity at your service” Roman gestured to himself, then gestured to Ethan, “This is my esteemed colleague: Blank.”

“We would have come without the masks but no one would have recognized us,” Ethan tried to joke.

The man let out a little fake laugh, “Pardon me, I have one of the museum backers in a meeting, I’ll have to talk with the two of you after the event starts.”

“Oh, don’t let us keep you,” Roman insisted, “we’re just here to admire the artwork, I may walk off with something if my friends don’t stop me.”

“Thought that was Logic’s job?” Ethan smiled even though it couldn’t be seen very well under his mask. “Well don’t let us keep you, we’ll just walk around until the gala starts.”

He smiled and left and nothing too important happened, the gala began and they soon found Damien amongst the crowd. Their evening up until that point had been filled with talking with people and Roman geeking out with other artists over their sculptures, paintings; and Roman was quite excited about a woman who had sculptured what looked like a handbag out of clay that looked so realistic Ethan thought someone had just left on a pedestal. During the conversation, Roman noticed Damien. The mayor was standing talking to another woman but during the conversation he noticed Roman and Ethan standing there.

She walked off, and Ethan thought he might be imagining it, but Damien seemed to be watching them a little more closely. He smiled as they walked over, “Well, what a pleasant surprise.”

“As if I would miss such a fantastic venue,” Roman smiled. “I was made for this scene.”

“I suppose I should have expected to see you then,” Damien apologized.

Ethan was looking around the room, mostly out of habit, Mark and Jack had drilled it into Ethan’s head to survey the room to see if a villain was sneaking in or if there was anyone causing trouble, and after what had happened to Robbie it was insisted that he find a way out to get out of a dangerous situation.

So he was looking around and watched the director heading towards the stairwell. Ethan wouldn’t have paid any extra attention but the director was frequently talking to a person following close behind and the man looked scared, nervously glancing back at the man following him.

Quickly turning to Roman, Ethan signaled to him, acting like he was itching his ear. “Be back, guys.”

“If you fight ninjas, call for backup,” Roman told him. “I don’t want to be left out of the fun.”

Ethan headed off in the direction of the bathrooms, and the instant he was out of sight, he turned invisible and headed back to the direction he’d seen the director sped walked off into. By luck or just because of how fast he’d reacted, Ethan was able to catch up to the director and his guest, and something about the person, and after watching this strangely familiar person for a while he was following the two down into the first basement of the museum.

“I do hope this will be a short walk,” the familiar stranger said.

“The service elevator will take you all the way down to the service elevator,” the man promised, turning the key into a slot on the elevator panel. “No stops, no interruptions.

Ethan watched the situation for a bit, it was all kinds of shifty and he didn’t like it, but Ethan and Roman were here to spy on Damien. But the enforcer was probably going off to talk to Dark . . . alone. Either way he was going to get chewed out. He could almost see Amy’s face when he would have to give his report of this mission. Maybe he could give it to J.J or Patton, they usually weren’t so tight fisted on what he did.

Quietly Ethan weighed his options, lamenting that regardless of the fact he’d more than earned his right as an official hero, most of the team tended to baby him. Hell it seemed like the whole city wanted to baby him.

While he thought about what to do, the elevator finally arrived and opened. The director said, “Give Dark my regards.”

Ethan moved without thinking, slipping into the large service elevator, once he was inside he crammed himself to the back and whispered into his earpiece, “Hey, Princey, keep your eyes on the Mayor, I’m following a network member.”

“Ill advised,” the enforcer dismissed coldly, looking down at his watch, getting into the elevator. He was getting more and more familiar to Ethan, his sharp and angular features and dark black square glasses. “It would be a waste of his time and mine. Remember your payment, I’d like to be able to have this month’s ledgers done on time.”

_“What?”_ Roman’s voice crackled over the earpiece and Ethan huddled further away from the enforcer. _“On your own? You’re not supposed to do that.”_

The elevator closed and slowly began to descend.

“I’m not an apprentice anymore, I know what I’m doing,” Ethan whispered and his eyes seemed to focus in and see through whatever illusion was around him and finally caught why the enforcer looked so familiar.

“Logan?” Ethan asked in surprise, much louder than he should have. Ethan covered his mouth and froze as Logan snapped his head to look at Ethan’s direction and the invisible hero kept absolutely still, making sure he stayed invisible.

Logan was looking around, suspicious, and clearly not believing he’d just hallucinated his own name being called out in an almost empty elevator.

He was slowly lifting his hands up to his lapel of his immaculate suit coat when the elevator grinded to a sudden halt and the lights began to flash, all the buttons lighting up as laughter began echo off the metal walls.

“Hello Four Eyes,” a scratchy voice echoed off the walls.

Ethan’s invisibility almost flickered a bit in surprise but braced himself for a fight. Logan seemed to calm down significantly. He just watched as a mass of tentacles and spikes shot out at him. Logan had been standing almost a foot-and-a-half from the elevator door and didn’t even flinch as he was attacked.

The invisible hero almost jumped in to save him but realized that Logan wasn’t being touched and he was just staring at the creature as if it was throwing feathers at him.

“Ah, greetings Anti, how has your day been?” Logan adjusted his glasses.

“Oh, cone on, I had yeh!” Anti materialized out of the button panels, coming out of the tentacles.

Logan was scanning over his suit again, “I do have to admit, I was a little perturbed when you called my name, I was not aware Dark had confided it to you.”

“That horsearse don’t tell me shite,” Anti spat. “It was probably Wil fishing in waters he’s not welcome. I thought he knew yer Aro ass was off the market.”

“No, I would recognize his voice,” Logan answered, looking away as he murmured to himself, finger resting against his lips and his brow furrowed in concentration. “It was probably Dark, he is the only person I can think of who would know my name. I must talk to him about using it in public, it’s quite dangerous and risky. He must be in a good mood today.”

Then Logan looked at Anti again and nonchalantly asked, “Do you mind removing yourself from the panel, I have a meeting to get to and Dark will not continue to be in a good mood if I am late.”

Anti had just been staring at Logan and at his request the glitch demon just started laughing. He did, however, pull himself out of the elevator and punched it before it continued its descent. He laughed as if Logan was the funniest thing in the world. “Do yeh think if I bugged Dark enough he’d let me pick yeh apart and watch yah break. I bet even yeh have a point where yah fookin’ fall apart.”

Logan only blinked, as if the glitch demon wasn’t threatening him. He adjusted his glasses in the Logan-like way Ethan had always seen him do. There was something in Logan’s eyes that looked inhuman. As if the person Ethan had known for years wasn’t there and Logan’s body was being piloted around by some demon.

Which wasn’t completely unlikely given the crazy, messed up world Ethan lived in.

“While highly improbable,” Logan answered while Ethan was having a crisis, “the likelihood is not 0.”

Anti was quiet for a second before cackling again, still floating in midair. “Wonder if I could clone you and get the same person.”

“Impossible,” Logan answered, reaching a wooden door, “you cannot perfectly duplicate another person.”

“Shame,” Anti commented, still smiling and the elevator door opened, Ethan followed them out into a room with a couple boxes all with serial numbers and labels. There was what looked like a large office on the other side of the room.

“Hey if you wanted to get a guy you like to annoy a birthday gift, what would it be?” Anti asked.

“I don’t think I am the one you should outsource gift ideas to,” Logan cautioned.

Anti kicked open the door the instant Logan had it open enough not to destroy the frame. “We’re home.”

Inside Ed Edgar had been napping in a chair leaned up against the wall and grunting in panic when the door was kicked open, pulling his gun out and almost shooting Anti before recognizing who it was and lowering it.

“Hey Eddy boy,” Anti grinned. “Guess who got an invite.”

“Hey dipshit,” Ed Edgar spat out at Anti before tipping his hat at Logan. “Howdy, Sanders, I see yah haven’t died yet?” 

Their argument and the fact Anti had kicked the door open when Logan probably would have closed it behind him, made it easy for Ethan to sneak in.

Logan walked off to the side of the room, three ledgers stacked up on a small desk.“If you were commenting on my state of existence, I don’t know how I could have given you the impression my life was at stake.”

Ed stared at him, pointing at him, “Yer smart mouth is gonna get yer teeth kicked in, an’ that’s what worries me.”

“Your concern is noted,” Logan not even looking up from the books. “Hopefully Dark will be in a better mood than he has been in the past few weeks, otherwise this will only be more bad news.”

“The only news is good news,” Wil patted Logan’s shoulder, suddenly appearing at his side.

“Statistically untrue,” Logan corrected, pointedly staring at Wilford’s hand and when he was slow to move it, Logan brushed it off.

“Someone seems to be in a sour-dour mood of their own,” Wilford gave a full, toothy smile.

“I merely do not appreciate you putting your hand on my person,” Logan reminded. “You historically have very promiscuous behavior and rarely understand someone turning you down. I am not interested in earning my employer’s ire because of a misunderstanding.”

Wilford laughed, “I knew you’d be fun.”

To Logan’s mounting ire, Wil roughly patted him on the back, “I’m glad Darky hasn’t run you off.”

“I am paid far too much, and leaving now would end in a rather painful and drawn out death,” Logan huffed out, looking Wilford dead in the eye.

The madman let out a booming laugh, “What a card that Dark.”

Wilford’s smile got wider as he sat on the desk, ignoring Logan’s glare. “Why there was this time down in Florence where there was this lovely Parisian magician I was seeing and Dark threatened to cut his fingers off.”

“That was because I caught you two having sex on my desk.”

The voice that spoke wasn’t Dark’s usual scratchy, deep tenor. It was higher pitched and sounded feminine. The echoey ringing was the same though.

Logan almost jumped out of his chair, and Ethan saw someone in short black hair, Dark’s red echo around her and in an immaculate suit.

“Celine,” Wil uttered, saying her name like it enchanted and enraptured him.

She sighed and sat down in the chair. Ethan got his first good look at Celine. He was surprised at how much she looked like Damien . . . and even scarier how much she looked like _Dark_.

“Ma’am,” Edgar stood up and took off his hat, bowing his head slightly. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Great,” Anti rolled his eyes. “The fun police is here.”

“Nice to see you too Anti,” she replied in an equally barbed tone. “Are you going to be useful here or just a waste of my time?”

“Ugh,” Anti groaned. “I’ll see myself out a’fore ye get even less fun. Tell yer other half he’s a dipshit.”

“Tell him yourself,” the woman replied. “As you can see, I’m a bit busy.”

“Yeah, making Wil suck ye off,” Anti muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” She barked.

“Ye heard me!” Anti tore a hole into the Void and vanished, he flipped her off as he left.

“Now you can’t talk to a lady like that,” Wilford snapped at Anti as he left, even leaning into the Void to finish berating him.

“Leave it Wil,” Celine told him and Wil pouted as he watched the Void close.

She snapped her fingers and a chair appeared from the Void, jolting into place beside her, a bright pink and yellow wood chair with a large mustache carved at the top of the backboard.

Then the door closed and Ethan distinctively claustrophobic while he was trying to keep his mind clear of thoughts Wil could read.

Wil flopped down in the chair. Celine patted him on the arm, saying, “Don’t worry he’s just upset I don’t let him walk all over me like he does with my brother.”

“How is the old bean?” Wil asked, “haven’t seen him in ages.”

“He’s fine dear, he’s just keeping a couple stiff shirts upstairs,” Celine dismissed. Then she turned to Logan and she smiled. “Well, well, you have turned into quite the useful little bookworm. So do you know who I am?”

It was Logan’s turn to smile, “Yes, I would recognize you anywhere. Do you have a specific name you wish to go by, Ma’am?”

She hummed, ignoring Wil who was inching towards her and clearly salty about not being the center of attention, but she gave that sticky sweet smile reminding Ethan of Dark when he was being especially sadistic. “I think for you, Madam Celine will work just fine, you rarely see the outside of your office and I am planning a new debut of sorts.”

Logan nodded, “Very well, Madam, I took the liberty of checking over the books again, and regrettably there is bad news.”

“When is there very good news these days?” She groaned, she leaned her hand over to trace around Wil’s face. “Sweetie, if you can’t be patient and behave, I’m going to kick you out of the room.”

Wil smiled, “Oh I can behave.”

“After,” She pushed him away, “Ed, Logan, reports, I don’t have all night to play charades.”

“Well the feds have been doing a lot more snooping about the old Downwich orphanage for one, and they’re getting nosy,” Ed began, “it’s just taken them a couple months to make any progress.” 

Celine thought for a bit, Wil just shrugged and commented, “None of the kids are minors anyways.”

She glared at Wil, grabbing him by the collar, “Did you forget the heroes have someone who can control time on their side?”

“They do?” Wil smiled. “That’s a neat trick.”

Celine’s eye began to twitch and the fierce ringing that usually accompanied Dark pitched up. “Wil, if I lose them because you chose to play games instead of taking this seriously, I will carve out your heart and feed it to you.”

Wil kept quiet at that.

“Ma’am, if you would allow me to make a suggestion,” Logan spoke up and Celine looked over at him.

“We should cut all ties with these sites,” Logan proposed. “They are becoming too dangerous to manage.”

“That’d cut mah supply at the ankles,” Ed snapped,

“If it puts the whole network at risk then your supply should be disallowed,” Logan commented in a dry but firm tone.

“What do you know about risk?” Edgar threatened, “you stay in an office all day.”

“Edgar, you strike him, and I’ll start removing fingers,” Celine threatened. “Logan has a point, distance has to be put between us and the sites, _immediately_. I want all their records destroyed. They never existed.”

“We can do that,” Ed promised, “how do you want me to handle Yanc’s paperwork, he’s already in a hot mess.”

“I don’t care,” she spat angry, “take care of it.”

“I can run a cost analysis for how to handle the situation without creating too much suspicion,” Logan offered, adjusting his glasses again. “It wouldn’t do to act without an informed decision.”

“That would be best,” Celine agreed.

“I can have those reports on your desk by the end of the week,” Logan promised. “The sooner we can make a decision, the better we can prepare for the consequences.”

“Another thing,” Celine added. “I don’t think I was clear to you in our last conversation. I want Brody moved up. He has top priority.”

Ethan got an uncomfortable tightening in his chest at hearing Chase’s name so casually thrown around.

Logan let out a frustrated sigh, “Might I ask why?”

“His unpredictable bravery mixed with his gift has the ability to turn the tide of a fight,” Celine corrected firmly. “Even if he is more than a little dim.”

Logan was quiet for a little bit, straightening his glasses, “If you are this certain about the threat he poses, then I will make him a priority target.”

“Oh no,” Celine smiled. “Not _that_ list, the other one. The same one I put the others onto.”

Logan paused, sounding confused, “Very well.”

The office door opened and Illinois in a nice tweed suit and glasses walked in, he was carrying his hat, under his arm was a package. Celine smiled at him and Ethan took his change to escape, slowly heading for the door. He made it to the other side and hid behind the wall.

“Hello sweetie, how’s the gala?” Celine to him.

“Oh it’s going great,” Illinois announced as Ethan began to make his way slowly and carefully back to the elevator, Logan seemed to be in more than friendly company and anything else he learned wasn’t important if he was dead. Once he was at the elevator, he sighed in relief when he saw it had a button to go back up and didn’t need a key.

“Charming,” Ethan whispered into his ear piece.

_“Sweet Aunt Jemima,”_ Roman sounded panicked. _“I have been trying to find you everywhere.”_

“Coming back up,” Ethan promised, and hit the button.

_“Back up,”_ Roman repeated in confusion, _“where are you?”_

The elevator dinged as it opened and Ethan froze, looking back at the room as he backed up into the elevator and hit the third floor to avoid being on the same floor as the elevator had first come down from. When it closed without investigation, Ethan made a sigh of relief but didn’t turn visible yet, he was tired but not out of trouble yet.

“Do you still have eyes on the Mayor?” Ethan asked.

_“Yeah, he’s been fine, talking, laughing,”_ Roman answered.

The elevator opened and Ethan stepped out, ducking into a room that didn’t have people inside, so he turned tangible. “Coming down from the third floor, where are you right now because we need to leave and fast.”

_“Wait a second, what about Logan?”_ Roman asked as Ethan began to head for the first exit he could find. _“You said his name and then went radio dark. Shoot, I lost him.”_

“The Mayor?” Ethan stopped on the stairs. “Leave Logic, he’ll fine.”

“Just get out, we’ll talk, late—” Ethan kept going, and stopped when he rounded a corner in the twisting staircase and saw Damien at the bottom of the staircase, hands resting on the pommel of his cane and a smile on his face. Ethan immediately pressed a button on his wrist watch and sent a silent alarm for back up to his location. “Mr. Mayor, how are you?”

Damien smiled. “Oh, I’m doing well, I just was a little worried, you walked off and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you for the last half-hour.”

“Has it been that long?” Ethan let out a nervous chuckle. “Lost track of time, I guess.”

Damien’s eyes narrowed, and he gave a smile that reminded Ethan of Celine. “You were in my office.”

“Depends on the day, I’ve been to your office before loads of times,” Ethan said.

The Mayor took one step up the stairs and Ethan took a matching one back up, “Then let me clarify: this afternoon you were spying on me in my office, I caught you around lunch time and you didn’t come back when I tore the room apart later.”

Another step up, another retreating one from Ethan.

“Why?” Damien asked, his smile growing into something else as they took another step. “Am I under investigation for something?”

“Uh,” Ethan stalled, forced to take another step.

“Crank!” Roman yelled and Ethan felt relief as Roman stood at the bottom of the stairs. Damien looked back at Roman.

“Stay out of my office or bring smarter back up,” Damien threatened and headed up the stairs, moving past Ethan without laying a finger on him.

“Are you—” Roman began but Ethan thudded down the stairs and ran for the exit.

“No, come on,” Ethan didn’t let up until he was outside and saw Jackie heading towards the door.

“Anyone hurt?” Jackie demanded.

“No, we need to get back to base, we’re being watched,” Ethan told him.

Despite Ethan’s warning, they weren’t attacked and there was no sign of being followed. Mark and Iplier were waiting for them, Mark looking relieved when Ethan came in looking unharmed.

“What happened?” Mark demanded.

“The Mayor and his sister are working with Dark,” Ethan accused, “they might even be his hosts. I saw Celine acting like she was Dark and no one even seemed to blink at that.”

“At the museum?” Mark demanded.

“No it was in some underground office underneath the museum, it looked like it was a place they shipped stuff out from,” Ethan explained. “Worse of all Logan was there talking to him and Wilford, he wasn’t in a mask and he was in this really nice suit.”

“Why would Logan be working with those shifty shadlings?” Roman huffed, insulted. “Maybe it was an illusion?”

“We’ll deal with the Logan problem when he comes into the base tomorrow,” Mark sidelined. “You said you two saw Dark possessing Celine? How? Dark’s never taken a host before.”

“That’d make him no longer the exception ta the rule,” Jackie cut in. “Every other demon we’ve fought with has either worked with a host before or is using one.”

“It’s only two demons,” Mark reminded.

“No, remember that time Marv got possessed by an undead witch, she was technically a demon,” Jack corrected.

“In any definition, the heroes have it wrong,” the Host announced himself, walking into the room.

“Really?” Mark asked. “Which part, the fact we have to replace another mayor or the fact Dark is taking hosts?”

“The Host doesn’t see the city’s current mayor leaving his post for the foreseeable future,” the Host denied, whispering into his cupped hand as a lack piece of paper folded itself into existence and it looked like a spindly paper person. “As for the Entity, he is not what he or she seems.”

“Who cares what he is?” Mark reminded sharply. “Dark has the keys to the city.”

Jackie drew his hand over his face, “Shit, how many identities does that asshole know?”

“Chase’s, Celine, or Dark, she mentioned him as “a priority target” or something,” Ethan said. “I’ve never told him mine.”

“Chase goes over ta talk wit’ the mayor e’ery week,” Jack groaned. “I’ll talk wit’ him. Mark let’s see if that asshole is anymore arrestable if he looks human.”

Jackie ran off and Mark turned to Ethan, “You are never to go off like that alone again.”

Ethan glared at Mark, “I am twenty-three, I’m not a baby. You go up against Dark and a group of his goons alone all the time.”

“I can be slammed against a wall at sixty miles an hour and not get hurt,” Mark reminded. “I don’t want to attend another funeral, especially if it’s for someone else who went into Dark’s territory with no back up and then got themselves thrown into a blender.”

“My powers are perfect for spying and you’re not letting me use it,” Ethan felt frustrated, taking his mask off. “Come on, I’m not an apprentice anymore.”

Mark took a deep breath, clearly not liking the situation, but he turned to the Host, “Hey Host.”

“Yes,” Host answered prematurely. “It would be the Host’s honor.”

Mark pointed at Ethan, “I want you to get so good I can’t find you when you start pulling pranks.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Ethan smiled, excited, he started to slink out, turning invisible halfway through his sentence. “I’ll be so stealthy that no one will see me.”

Mark rolled his eyes, “You can’t be a good spy if you keep running your mouth.”

“I was never here,” Ethan said to him, next to Mark’s shoulder.

“You’re not making me feel good about this,” Mark told him.

“Where am I?” Ethan asked, making his voice sound ghostly.

“A mistake was made,” Mark just shook his head smiling, “clearly.”

Ethan joked around for a bit before he and Mark eventually went home, Roman already off trying to track Logan down.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: it is canon in my story that Daniel is dead, I did not feel comfortable changing or showing that event in the story so it remains largely unchanged and while it might be mentioned I am trying to do some service to a real person who really died in real life so Mark is not just talking about Daniel at the end there, although he did attend his funeral as well.
> 
> No he is talking about a hero who is dead but is still walking around, because how did the heroes get a zombie on the payroll?


End file.
